A Boy of Old Prague by Sulamith Ish-Kishor
A short tale, copiously and sensitively illustrated by Ben Shahn, of the Prague ghetto in the 1550s. A Christian boy is discarded by his master in settlement of a debt to become the servant of one those terrible Jews whose black souls the Devil will have when they die. Except, to his awakening astonishment, his new master is kinder than the old one and feeds him well and lets him visit his family and so his allegiances shift as his eyes open. He comes to love those whose lot his has been thrown in with and when a terrible day falls upon them his life is changed for ever.
Even as Titian painted light a few hundred miles away, Europe’s dark past was accumulating. Simply told, this is a beautiful reminder of how carefully we must love our brothers and sisters. A useful read, perhaps for the child who is wondering about prejudice and bigotry and how easily we fall into unkindness to those who seem unlike us.
